Flush Convenience Store

Yesterday afternoon as I was driving down the Springfield Road in West Belfast I noticed a shop called the Flush Convenience Store.  The name caught my attention because the word flush is actually an Ulster-Scots word.

We find it in the Flush Bend, the Flush Field and the Flush River, also on the Springfield Road, and in the Flush Road and Flush River at Ligoniel.

According to the Scottish National Dictionary, flush means (1) a piece of boggy ground, a swampy place, or a pool of water in a field (2) slush and (3) a sluice for turning water off an irrigated meadow.

The dictionary notes that it is found in place-names and that the word comes from the Old Scots flus, which was recorded in 1375, but is of uncertain origin.

The presence of the word in place-names in North and West Belfast recalls the fact that these were once Ulster-Scots speaking areas and that Ulster-Scots lived in these areas.

'Cheap drink caused death'

A cross-border conference on alcohol abuse was held in Armagh on Thursday and it was reported that last year 284 people died in Northern Ireland directly as a result of alcohol misue, an increase of around 40% in the last decade.  Alochol related problems cost up to £900 million a year with almost £250 million borne by the Health Service.

In Northern Ireland there were more than 12,000 admissions to acute hospitals with an alcohol related diagnosis and 355 admissions to hospital for currhosis of the liver, up from 281 in 2005/6.  On 1 March 2010 more than 3,000 people were in treatment for alcohol misuse in Ulster.

Those stark figures set out the growing cost of alcohol abuse and Health Minister Edwin Poots MLA said, 'There is no doubt that alcohol misuse is one of the main threats to public health in Northern Ireland.  If we do not take significant and robust action, the costs to Northern Ireland and the health and social care system in particular, will continue to grow.'

This morning I went into a garage to get some petrol and my attention was taken by the front page headline in the Irish News (28 January): Cheap drink caused by son's fatal plunge.

On Wednesday night Joseph Murphy, aged 20, attended a Snow Patrol concert in Belfast and then went on to  Beach night club in the Odyssey. There he drank heavily at the club's cut-price  drinks promotion, where he was getting vodka for £1 and according to his father 'he couldn't get enough.'

After leaving the club he made his way towards the Lagan weir bridge.  Later he was seen 'lying across the weir railings' and a passer by tried to get him down but he fell into the river.  

Beach is owned by Ultimate Leisure and the general manager in Belfast is Brian Townley, who responed to the point about the cheapness of alcohol in the club.  He said, 'Beach is fully supportive of sensible minimum ricing and we would be happy to abide by it - however this must be done on a level playing field.'

The reality is that competition between nightclubs leads to alcohol being sold at prices such as £1 for vodka and then on to tragedies such as the death of this young man. An editorial in the Irish News comments: 'Certainly, all drinkers have to be mindful of the risks associated with excessive consumption but there is a longstanding issue over promotions which can encourage people to overindulge.  This tragedy is sure to reignite the debate over minimum pricing and the responsibilities of licensed retailers.'

My own department has responsibility for the Lagan Weir, which was taken over from Laganside, and we will undoubtedly review safety measures but clearly alcohol played the major part in the tragedy.

Right across the British Isles, in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, there is a growing recognition of the need to address the problem of alcohol abuse and this terrible tragedy is a reminder of the urgency of that task.

Edwin Poots has a health remit and I have a departmental remit for social legislation.  Both of us have met with health professionals and I have also met with representatives from the various sectors within the drink trade.  There has also been a public consultation on licensing law.  I am now finalising my own plans in relation to alcohol legislation and Edwin has already launched a five year strategy - The New Strategic Direction for Alochol and Drugs - to address the issue of alcohol and drug misuse.

The scourage of illegal drugs receives quite a lot of attention but alcohol abuse, especially binge drinking causes just as much damage.

UKIP's libertarian leader

Nigel Farage MEP is the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party.  Many Ulster folk will share their stance in relation to the European Union but there is another aspect of UKIP which most people will find less appealing and that is its libertarianism.

You can't get a better illustration of that than the following quotation from UKIP leader Nigel Farage MEP, which was part of an interview in the Daily Telegraph (18 November 2010):

Yes I am a libertarian.  I think prostitution, for instance, should be decriminalised and regulated.  I feel that about drugs too.  I am opposed to the hunting ban and the smoking ban, too.  What have they to do with government?

The libertarianism of the UKIP leader leads him to a position where he wants to legalise prostitution and heroin!  That is the sort of position that libertarianism leads to.

Dickens and Belfast

Last night (25 January) there was an article in the Belfast Telegraph on the visits to Belfast by the English author Charles Dickens.  This was connected to the fact that this year is the 200 anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens in 1812.

It was a very interesting article but it omitted one of Dickens' most perceptive comments about the town.  After his first visit to Belfast in 1858 he wrote: 'Tremendous houses, curious people.  They seem all Scotch, but quite in a state of transition.'

Dickens recognised the strong Scottish influence in Belfast, something which was recognised by many other visitors in the 218th and 19th centuries.

When the French aristocrat Le Chevalier de la Tochnaye visited in 1797 he said, 'Belfast has almost entirely the look of a Scotch town and the character of the inhabitants has considerable resemblance to that of the people of Glasgow.'

Moreover the people of Belfast still spoke Ulster-Scots.  When Amyas Griffith came to Belfast in 1780 as Surveyor of Excise he noted that 'the common people speak broad Scotch'.

The observation by Dickens that the people 'seem all Scotch' was noted in the magazine of the Ulster-Scots Language Society (winter 2004), which included an excellent article by Dr Philip Robinson entitled 'Charles Dickens, Belfast and the Ulster-Scots'.

A new approach to housing

In a post earlier today on Slugger O'Toole, Mick Fealty said: 'Whatever the nature of the problems in housing provision, and it has to be said the local administration is certainly exposing more knotty problems than most departments, a revision of the purpose of public funded housing, its role within the wider economy, and the validity of current goals is long overdue.'

Mick has recognised that the Department for Social Development has 'exposed more knotty problems than most departments'.  There is no point in trying to bury problems - get them addressed.

He then calls for 'a revision of the purpose of public funded housing, its role within the wider economy, and the validity of current goals' and says it 'is long overdue'.  I agree that it is overdue and in fact I and my officians have been working on the production of a new housing strategy for Northern Ireland, one that is comprehensive and coherent.  This will build on the current review of the Northern Ireland housing Executive, the registration of private landlords and the ongoing work with housing associations and it will cover a wide range of housing issues. 

On several occasions I have mentioned that a new strategy will be forthcoming fairly soon and it is something that we need, especially in the context of welfare reform.

The nanny state?

In his Irish News column today (21 January), Newton Emerson asked: 'Now that health minister Edwin Poots has banned cigarette vending machines, what is the next item on the nanny statelet agenda?'

Newton Emerson seems to have something of a libertarian agenda and opposes what he describes pejoratively as a 'nanny statelet'.  However most folk support the concept of state intervention in the interest of public health and wellbeing.

For example, in 2004 the King's Fund, an independent think tank, conducted a survey of more than 1,000 people and found that most favoured policies that combated certain behaviours, such as eating a poor diet or public smoking.

We have heard the use of the term 'nanny state' in the past in relation to legislation on such things as the wearing of safety helmets by motor cyclists or the wearing of seat belts in motor cars.  However both items of legislation are now recognised to have saved lives and reduced serious injuries in accidents.  Are these not good outcomes and do they not justify the legislation?

It is too easy for libertarians to trot out their empty slogans about a 'nanny state'.  No, if we are a caring an compassionate society that we do well to consider the wellbeing of others.

So then, Edwin Poots was right in relation to cigarette vending machines, which are a major source of supply for cigarettes for young people.  A survey in 2010 showed that vending machines were the usual source of cigarettes for 14%  of smokers aged between 11 and 16.  Jayne Murray of the British Heart Foundation in Northern Ireland  said, 'Vending machines don't ask for proof of age and are an easy route for children to tobacco.'

It is estimated that there are 1,800 cigarette vending machines in Northern Ireland and their removal will certainly help to reduce the number of children who smoke.  That is to be welcomed.

Gunfight at OK Corral - the Ulster connections

The Gunfight at the OK Corral took place on 26 October 1881 at Tombstone, Arizona Territory.  The gunfight lasted less than a minute but today it is one of the best-known events in the history of the West.  However it was relatively unknown until 1931 when Stuart Lake wrote a largely fictional biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, two years after Wyatt died.  It was also the subject and title of a 1957 film starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas and has featured in many other books and films. 

On one side were Wyatt Earp , his brothers Morgan and Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday.  On the other side were brothers Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton.  It is said that the McLaury brothers had repeatedly threatened the Earps because they interfered with their illegal activities but the circumstances surrounding the gunfight and the events of the day have been the subject of extensive discussion.

Tom and Frank McLaury, the main protagonists on one side were certainly Scotch-Irish, and the Earp family, the main protagonists on the other side, were also of Ulster descent. 

The first emigrant, Thomas Earp (1631-1720), was born in the Barony of Fews in county Armagh and emigrated from Ulster to America at the end of the 17th century. 

Josiah Earp was the first 'Fighting Earp', enlisting in the Colonial Army in Maryland in 1789.  Soon after the war Phillip Earp moved to Kentucky, which is where Wyatt's grandfather, Walter Earp, raised most of his children.  Walter was a schoolteacher, a JP  and a Methodist Episcopal preacher. 

Walter married Martha Ann Early (1790-1880) from North Carolina and they were the parents of Nicholas Porter Earp (1813-1907).

In 1840 he married his second wife, Ann Cooksey, and in 1847 the family moved to Monmouth, Illinois.  They were the parents of Wyatt Earp, who was born on 19 March 1848.

Allen Barra, Inventing Wyatt Earp: His life and legends: New York, 1998